


Silver Seid

by Amigara



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate History, Blind Character, Canon Disabled Character, Fantasy, Gen, M/M, Magic-Users, Old Norse, Pagan Gods, Runes, Vikings, Wheelchairs, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-12-13 02:18:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11750013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amigara/pseuds/Amigara
Summary: Nothing ever comes for free in this world or any other. In theory, Argent knew this. But there were still some things he was not willing to give up on so easily.------------------Trying to save his lover's life, Argent risks everything. Trying to pick up the pieces, Nys finds that the past is never far away.





	1. ᚠ

**Author's Note:**

> This is very much a wip. I have a rough outline, but I'm excited to see where it goes! It's been a while since I wrote due to life happening, so please have patience while I warm up!

"Beloved, are you awake?" Argent whispered, turning to the man next to him in the coarse hay-and-linen bed of the local inn. He reached out to run his hand over the man's cool chest. Even so wrapped in blankets, Oth felt cold.

For a terrible, irrational moment, Argent thought he was already too late.

But then Oth stirred, and sighed, and pulled himself up. Argent embraced him swiftly and gently, like the other might break. Oth smelled of sweat and sickness. He had ever since Argent first met him, a few short, beautiful weeks ago. But the scent of weakness had always been hidden beneath perfumes, under the rush of a kiss or the fluttering of Argent's own heart.

Now it was palpable, and Argent could wait no longer.

"I am still here, my silver seidr," Oth said in his deep, melodic voice. Even rough with sleep as it was, it made Argent shiver. But no, they couldn't. Last night, they had tried. It had ended with Oth coughing up blood and apologizing, and Argent soothing him to rest, before crying himself to sleep as soon as Oth would not hear it.

"For how much longer?" Argent said. His heart ached at the thought. "It's too cruel. I've barely known you for a full moon, and now you might leave me at any moment."

"You knew I was ill when we met. I came to your town to make peace with the vanir. I always wanted to die somewhere beautiful. Here with you seems the perfect choice."

Argent's eyes stung with tears and he slapped Oth on the arm. "No! Don't talk like that. When we met, I didn't know that I'd... care, so much."

"Oh, you care about me?" Oth chuckled.

"I love you." Argent growled forcefully.

"...thank you, Argent. But you are only eighteen. You are only just a man, with a whole life before you. If this goes wrong... I wouldn't want to see you hurt." Oth rubbed Argent's back and slowly pulled out of the careful hug. 

"I would hurt more if you died." Argent pouted. "Besides, you're not much older."

Oth laughed. He hugged Argent firmly and kissed him on the forehead. "I've got seven years on you. Seven years of strife and beauty... it's my time."

"You'll have many more years and much more time, just you wait!" Argent wriggled out of his grip and leapt from the bed. "I'll try it today. If it works... no, it will work! Vanadis is my family's fylgja. Vanadis gave us the power of seid. I will call on her to extend her protection to you."

Oth chuckled. "If you say so. It's worth a shot."

"Don't sound too enthused." Argent stuck his tongue out. "Get dressed. You need to make a rune."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ᚠ (fehu) is the first letter in the rune alphabet. It means 'wealth'.
> 
> Seidr (seiðr) is a type of old Norse shamanistic magic.
> 
> Fylgja means 'follower', and is a guardian spirit.


	2. one

The castle walls surrounding the garden were tall, Nys knew, four stories of halls and hallways and nooks perfectly entrapping the fragrant, flowering heart of Hertigslott Castle. The castle was the largest building Nys had ever been in, the largest building, surely, ever made by human hand. Yet for all of the effort the smooth stone walls were exerting, warm rays of sun filtered down from above.

As the creeping sun rose higher in the sky, ruining the cool of morning, Nys gathered his things – yarn, needles, bag, and cane - and shifted to another stone bench. He was about to have a seat when he heard the clearing of a throat as he nearly sat his bag in the lap of some elder gentleman. By the sound of the throat clearing, he deduced it was the Lord of Nordstad. A silent type from the north, who did not possess the common decency to make sounds or possess a strong enough smell to distinguish himself against the floral perfume of the gardens.

"Excuse me," Nys muttered, stumbling on before the lord could give an awkward 'sorry'.

He knew there were stone benches in even intervals along the mosaic path. Another ten footfalls, and he was at the next one. "Is this seat taken?" He asked loudly, and received no response. He sat and leaned his cane up against the bench. Normally, he would use it to guide his feet with, but after nearly ten years, he relied more so on his hearing. The cane was a good enough weapon of self defense if it came to it, though, and was more useful if he ever ventured out of the castle and into the bustling streets of Hertigby.

He pulled up his needles again and traced his fingers along the yarn. He had a decent length already – this one would be a scarf, he had decided. Knitting relaxed him like little else, eased his mind and soothed his jittery fingers. The sound of the wooden needles clicking together, the slide of the yarn between his fingers... To create something useful out of something so basic.

He had been a weaver once. And he was, in a way, a weaver still. Though his knots and loops were considered less impressive now. Certainly less colorful.

He got lost in the tangles of time and memory, leaving his seat in the shade in favor of past regrets. Perhaps half an hour and at least three inches of scarf passed before he heard a familiar sound approaching from the main gate to the garden, some fifty feet to his left.

"Is that going to be another scarf?" A playful voice asked. Nys pulled his cane up onto the bench to make room. He pulled up his feet as well, folding them up under himself, just in case.

"It is," he confirmed neutrally.

He heard the child huff, and then felt the impact of her wooden wheel against the side of the bench. She had mastered the speed, but not quite the breaks yet. "Let me guess. This one is going to be gray, too." 

Nys chuckled. Sarcastic little brat. "Oh shoot, I picked the gray yarn again? I could have sworn this one smelled purple." 

Drea paused and he could almost hear her pout as he didn't fall for her bait. "You don't own anything purple at all. Or blue, or green, or red, or, or any fun colors!"

"You'd know that better than me." Nys smirked. If anyone else had poked fun at him like this, he might have gotten angry. But Drea was a child, only ten. And she was damned clever, too. If a little spoiled. And almost as experienced with solitude as Nys was by now.

"You're just scared you're gonna look stupid wearing a yellow scarf with a green hat with red pants with a purple shirt!" Drea exclaimed loudly, before breaking into giggles at the idea.

Nys had to laugh at how easily she was amused. "Why, that sounds absolutely handsome. If I made something like that, do you think King Halfred would promote me to royal tailor?"

"No! That's a hideous combination! Besides..." Drea trailed off, and he could hear that she was fidgeting. Picking at the stuffed leather cushion she sat on.

"Besides...?" Nys asked, putting his knitting into his bag and turning his face to her, to show that he was paying attention.

"Then you'd have to stop being a teacher."

"It might be a nice break," Nys teased.

"Meanie!" Drea shrieked. "I meant you'd have to stop being my teacher!"

Nys grinned at her. "Aw. Would you miss me?"

She huffed again, and began to roll away. Nys sighed, picked up his bag, grabbed his cane, and followed after. 

He caught up with her only once she'd reached the wooden slope to the entrance door. It sounded like she was struggling to get onto it. 

"I would miss you, anyway," he said simply, to calm her down. He heard a sniffle from chest height. 

"Don't be so sentimental," she scolded him, "and help me up already!"

"Yes, princess," Nys sighed, taking hold of the handles on the backrest of her chair, and pushing her up the ramp, over the treshold, and into the ground floor hallway.

"I'm not a real princess!" Drea gasped. "You can't say that!"

"Why? There's no 'real' princess to get offended." Nys retorted, but in a whisper.

The king, Halfred, was a kind man. Generous, hospitable, enjoying a good laugh... likely why he had hired Nys, a poor blind halfbreed, in the first place. And why he cared so deeply for the crippled daughter of some unwed, lesser noblewoman. Unless, of course, the rumors about Drea's real father were true...

Nys heard many rumors. Oftentimes people saw that he was blind, and somehow also assumed that made him deaf. Drea wasn't like that. She was only a kid, but Nys considered her a friend. She was broken, like he was. Though she was far spunkier than he'd ever been.

"Now, what are we learning today, Master Nys?" Drea asked as she allowed him to roll her toward the ground floor library they used as a lesson hall.

"Depends on what you learned yesterday."

"I did my reading!" Drea protested. "I know all of the things!"

"Oh, a master magician already? Please have mercy on me, mistress of witches! I spoke out of turn."

"You're dumb," Drea huffed. "I meant I know all the things you told me yesterday. I know all the gods and the goddesses, and the trolls and the giants and the dragons..."

"Don't forget the elves," Nys added.

"I wasn't going to! The elves and the vittra and the vanir, the goblins, imps and spirits..."

Their lesson continued in the lesson hall, with Drea listing off everything she knew, Nys added the things they had forgotten, and then they moved on from there. Knowing what creatures and powers existed in the world was not enough to use seid or any other kind of magic. She had to learn to control their wills, too. And perhaps more importantly, Drea would have to learn to control her own heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hertigslott means 'duke's castle'.  
> Hertigby means 'duke's village'.
> 
> Vittra are invisible, small spirits or humanoid creatures who live below ground.
> 
> Vanir are one of two groups of Norse gods - the other being the Aesir.


	3. ᚢ

Argent showed Oth to the woods behind his parent's home in the center of the village. He followed the cold stream through bilberry bushes and past ant hills until they came to the goahti hut. The hut was simple, but had stood there empty for as long as Argent remembered. He had remembered the way in a dream and found it where he dreamt it would be.

They ducked under the pelt covering the opening in the peat walls, and sat down on the dirt floor in the center of the wooden hut. There was a ring burned into the ground between them, perfectly round, and Argent traced the charcoal circle slowly. This would have held a fire, once, its smoke rising up through the conical hut and out through the hole in the top.

The room smelled of smoke and forest, as it always did. It was silent, for a moment, then Argent nodded. "You carved the rune as I asked you?" 

"Yes. 'Health', right?" Oth said.

Argent nodded. "Place the stone in the circle. And close your eyes."

"Why do I have to close my eyes?" Oth asked. "I've always wanted to see something like this."

"Because I don't want you seeing me drool and roll my eyes and shake. I've been told I'm not very pretty in a trance." Argent joked.

"I've seen you sleeping," Oth replied. "It can't be much worse."

"Just close your eyes. And shut up." Argent sighed.

"I love you," Oth said.

Argent did not reply, but he felt his heart skip a beat.

He closed his eyes, and he focused on the stone on the ground before him, and he focused on Vanadis, the vanir goddess who protected his family and gave them their seidr.

She answered his call, and then everything went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ᚢ (ur) is the second letter of the rune alphabet. It means water or urochs. 
> 
> A goathi is a type of hut, used traditionally by the indigenous sami peoples of Scandinavia.


	4. two

"So Seid is like... embroidery?" Drea asked, a late afternoon as their daily lesson was wrapping up. "Like when mother makes me sew flowers and patterns onto the hems of my dresses."

"Something like that. Only, if you did it in your sleep. No, in your dreams." Nys smiled sardonically, his lips stretching wide to expose teeth. That was how they smiled in the capital, he'd been told. His own natural smile was too secretive, too demure. Apparently, it made people uncomfortable.

"How would I embroider in my sleep? I'll prick myself on the needle, and get blood on my dress." 

Nys chuckled. How apt an observation. "You sew very carefully, and study the pattern closely before beginning. If not, you will prick yourself."

"That doesn't make any sense." Drea huffed. "When I sleep, I don't remember what I did when I was awake." He heard the creaking as she adjusted her chair, backing up from the desk, and circling around his own seat. She was getting restless, as children did after staying still for a long time.

Nys took her cue and rose, putting away his books and grabbing his cane. He started walking, sweeping the cane slowly over the stone floor in front of himself, as she rolled alongside him. He headed for the gardens as he mulled over her comment.

"That's what you'll have to learn. Have you ever done something, heard something, eaten something, and then remembered it in a dream? Say, you were scared by a spider, and that night you dream about a giant spider chasing you?" 

Drea hurried ahead, and Nys followed the sound of her chair. He told her often to oil it better, but the way she drove around bumping into things, he was surprised enough it was still in one piece.

"I'm not scared of spiders." Drea giggled. "I'm not a baby!"

Nys laughed. "Fine. Baths then?"

"It's unnatural! If people were supposed to sit around in water, we'd have scales," the girl screeched to a halt, and Nys ran into the back of her chair before he could pause in his step. "Besides, mother says I don't smell bad, so it's fine. I don't get sick anymore. A coating of dirt keeps you healthy."

"Regardless," Nys insisted, refusing to let Drea distract him from finishing up their lesson, "the way Seid works is like that. You plan out what you will do. Think really hard about it. Focus. And then, when you go into a trance, your consciousness can stitch together the magic. Think of your runes as the pattern, your mind as the needle, and the spirits you call are the thread."

Drea finally rolled along into the shade of a tree, and Nys took a seat on the bench next to her in the cool darkness. As she was moving around on the gravel path, sounding like she was trying to find new and exciting ways to tip her chair over, Nys took out his knitting.

After a moment of silence from the girl – except for her grunts and whoops as she made circles in the gravel – Drea spoke up again.

"So what does it feel like? Calling on a spirit... a vittra, or a guardian fylgja, or a god?"

"You don't feel a thing." Nys answered.


	5. ᚦ

It had never been like this. Every time Argent called on a vittra to guide his eyes, every time he bade the Norns to share some thread of the future, he remembered nothing. He felt nothing. It was up to his mother or aunt to explain what had happened, what he had said or done in his trance. Later, his few clients would recount what occurred, what sort of fortune he had foretold or what the souls of their ancestors had spoken of.

But this time, when he opened his eyes again, he could see. Not the energies and bright outlines the vittra showed him through their woven bond, but colors. Shapes. Light and dark.

A face. A beautiful, terrible face. Shining with splendor, her golden hair filling everything around him. She was a giant, or perhaps he was smaller than a mouse. Argent recognized her by looks, but even more so by energy.

"Vanadis," he heard himself say. His voice was oddly muffled in this space, but he could not turn his head to see where he was. "Guardian of my blood. You came to me as I asked."

Her face did not change, and it was then that he realized she was not smiling at him. She was gritting her teeth in rage.

"My lady?" he stuttered. 

His vision began to fade. The colors washed out of his sight, her beautiful form vanishing before him. The shadows around him grew deeper, the lights dimmer. And his form grew weaker and weaker.

"Vanehus," he heard her voice, so clear and cool and painful in his head. It felt like ice, like burning fire, and he could see nothing now. "What have you done?"

He wanted to cover his ears. He wanted to see her face again. He wanted to see her smiling, not grimacing at him.

A sharp burst of light appeared before his internal eye once more for a mere heartbeat, but the shapes it formed remained burned into his mind for an agonizing eternity. Two simple symbols, but they made his heart sink in terror. 

"What have you done?" The voice of Vanadis shrieked through his head once more. His head split in agony and he felt himself falling, though he could see nothing. He felt his veins split open as bright, sharp light was drawn out of his veins and sucked into the cold, empty void around him.

Argent screamed as he bled out in the dark, growing weaker and colder until finally, he didn't feel a thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ᚦ (Thurs) is the third symbol of the futhark. It means giant.
> 
> Norns were female beings who ruled over destiny by spinning the threads of fate.


End file.
